Here's a resource you might not normally run across in the usual bibliographies, since it's a book chapter. Hilary Josephs of Syracuse University wrote the chapters on Chinese employment law in this forthcoming volume.

If rudeness is outlawed, then will only outlaws be rude? This question is stimulated by a recent story in the Los Angeles Times reporting that according to a new Beijing municipal regulation, "[s]tarting next month, Beijing shopkeepers who vent their anger, act impatiently, glance at customers disdainfully or act absent-mindedly are in violation of the law." The article goes on: "The government report makes no mention of penalties, leading to speculation about how the regulations will be enforced. What will a consumer need to prove that he or she was wronged? Will a cellphone video clip become the supporting evidence of choice?"

Actually, I think the LAT is being a little unfair in poking fun at this document; entitled 北京市商业零售企业员工行为礼仪规范（试行） (Beijing Municipality Standards for Polite Behavior by Commercial Retail Sales Enterprise Personnel (for Trial Implementation), issued Nov. 10, 2006), it is (as one commentary points out) not intended to be a set of rules enforceable by punishments. It is not clear that the issuing body, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Commerce, would have the authority to prescribe punishments even if it wanted to. Nevertheless, it belongs squarely within a tradition of Chinese governments trying to get their citizens to shape up that dates back at least to Chiang Kai-shek's New Life movement in the 1930s, and that continues today with the Eight Glories Eight Shames (八荣八耻) campaign and attempts to get tourists to behave better.

Public reaction has been rather skeptical; one commentator opines that polite behavior by service personnel is the result of competition in the marketplace, not government decree, pointing out that you get much better service in the more highly marketized south. But certainly a casual attitude toward customer service cannot be blamed solely on socialism; Lao She satirized it in 1934 in his short piece "Withdrawing Money" (取钱) (worth looking at if you read Chinese).

If this were a Time magazine article, it would end by saying something like, "One thing seems certain: whatever the government decrees, Beijing's taxi drivers are likely to continue to go their own way." But it isn't.

Normally I don't plug individual books or articles (then I might have to start justifying why I don't plug others, and that's not a road I want to go down), but I make an exception for material that is really outstanding or hard to find or some combination of both. In this case both criteria are satisfied (it's not on Amazon.com).

The book in question is Robin Munro, China's Psychiatric Inquisition: Dissent, Psychiatry and the Law in Post-1949 China (London: Wildy, Simmonds and Hill, 2006), a thorough study of the political abuse of psychiatry in China based on Munro's Ph.D. thesis (Department of Law, School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London). (I should perhaps disclose a personal connection: I have been a friend of the author for many years.)

This is an unimpeachably (and in my opinion irrefutably) researched book, based largely on openly published Chinese sources. As a result, skeptics don't need to take the author's word for it; they can verify his sources for themselves. Although Munro's previous works on this subject have, not surprisingly, subjected him to criticism, none of the criticism I have seen - even where it rises above ad hominem name-calling - actually addresses the sources he cites in such detail and what they tell us. In particular, many of his critics have focused on Falungong-related issues, which are just a minor part of the overall story. Political abuse of psychiatry existed well before the anti-Falungong campaign and continues quite apart from it.

For a debate on earlier work in this area by Munro (which will bear out my characterization of the criticism), see the following (a symposium issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, and a response by Munro in a subsequent issue):

This is a pathbreaking work in China studies, a chilling account of psychiatric abuse of political dissidents dating back to the early days of the Chinese regime and extending to the present. Munro's remarkable research brings to light the sufferings of thousands of previously unsuspected victims, some detailed in heart-breaking case studies.

Far from being an obscure corner of the Chinese system, the gulag of psychiatric abuse proves to be diagnostic of fundamental flaws in Chinese-style rule of law and state-dominated medicine. Munro's earlier research sparked an international campaign to seek improvements. This new, full account of his findings will stand as a classic of human rights research while it deepens our understanding of the Chinese legal and political system.

As of today (Jan. 1, 2007), all death sentences must be reviewed by the Supreme People's Court; review may no longer be delegated to Higher-Level People's Courts. The legislative basis for this was already laid last October, when the Organic Law on People's Courts was revised to eliminate (as of Jan. 1, 2007) the SPC's power to delegate review [news story | legislation]. Now the Supreme People's Court has issued its own regulation formally revoking its previous delegations.

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Main Feature

Secured Transactions Law Reform in China

Key stakeholders in China work with the World Bank and People’s Bank of China to undertake legal and institutional changes to improve access to credit for Chinese businesses.

Legal Reform

Returning Death Penalty Review to the Supreme People’s Court: How will the Court Staff the New Death Penalty Review Divisions?

The Supreme People’s Court is reinstating its full authority to review death penalty sentences. Three new criminal divisions will require a large number of new judges.

Case File

Voices Against Discrimination

An update of recent cases and developments in Hepatitis B Virus status, gender, residency and place of origin-based discrimination.

Heard on the Web

Beijing Police Abandons Quota

The quota system for traffic fines and criminal arrests in Beijing has officially ended. Most bloggers applaud the move and offer some interesting twists of their own.

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